Westerville data aplenty, but which to use?

School data isn't too difficult to find in many cases. The tricky part is often deciding which
data suits the situation best.

That issue came up in the
analysis
of Westerville school spending in Sunday's newspaper. Some readers pointed out that they had
seen different numbers than what we reported, and that's probably because different institutions
analyze and report data in different ways.

A note to the reader: This might be a bit of inside baseball.

Take enrollment as an example. One reader commented that the numbers reported in the story
(14,100 students in 2011 and 13,500 in 2006) are different than those in the district's
comprehensive annual
financial report (14,200 in 2006 and 14,800 in 2011). If you look at the headcount the district
takes each October, you get yet another set of numbers: 14,300 in 2006 and 15,000 in 2011.

The discrepancies are largely because various sources have different reporting guidelines and
uses. The October headcount is a snapshot of enrollment at one point in time. But that number often
changes throughout the school year -- students leave, others move in -- so we chose to use the
average daily membership, an average of enrollment counts reported by the Ohio Department of
Education.

Although district officials note that they have to plan for (read: pay for) the number of
students who show up in October, the state-reported data more accurately shows the level of service
the district actually gave.

The same reader noticed differences in the number of teachers. The story notes that the district
now employs about 990 teachers, an uptick of about 120 from 2006. Those numbers came from Curt
Jackowski, director of human resources for the district. The aforementioned annual financial
reports show different numbers: the full-time equivalent of 880 teachers in 2011, an increase of
about 100 from 2006.

But what's a teacher? Sometimes the term is reserved for those at the head of a classroom. The
numbers we reported include anyone with a teaching certificate in Westerville schools. Still,
Jackowski noted that some of the teacher counts in the financial report were off, apparently
because of a reporting discrepancy that predates him.

We used the numbers he tallied because they are the most-accurate available, but the story's
figures for spending on teachers come from the financial report and aren't affected.

Another reader contested the average salary of administrators. He had calculated the average
salary of 15 administrators in the district to be $119,000, using payroll data. Our story used the
Cupp Report, an annual document from the state's education department, which
put the figure at $85,000 in 2010, the most-recent state data.

Again, it comes down to the definition of
administrator. The figure from the state report has a broader definition than that reader,
reaching the $85,000 figure by averaging the equivalent of 64 administrators.